Why It Took 10 Years For Michael Mann’s ‘Miami Vice’ To Get Its Due

“We are at the delicate interface between ocean and air … liquid and gas … the event horizon where molecules evaporate. This interchange is ethereal.” — Opening exposition from Michael Mann’s screenplay for Miami Vice

You know what’s less ethereal than liquid or gas? Hot air. That’s what critics and audiences thought they saw in the summer of 2006 after watching Michael Mann’s big-screen reboot of Miami Vice. The film entered theaters with a lethal dose of negative buzz — Miami Vice had already suffered from bad weather, violent threats to the cast and crew, egotistical and hard-partying stars, and an obsessive director accused of driving up the budget and alienating co-workers while in pursuit of an indeterminate vision. Upon release, things got even worse: Miami Vice was swiftly marked for cinematic oblivion as an indifferently received box office bomb.

What a difference a decade makes. Now, Miami Vice has a burgeoning reputation as a cult favorite, especially among younger critics and filmmakers who consider it a touchstone in their love of movies. “Miami Vice looks and moves like no other movie,” raved The A.V. Club‘s Ignatiy Vishnevetsky in 2013. “I’d be lying if I said that I’m not moved by it.”

Over time, what was initially enumerated as the film’s weaknesses have come to be viewed as strengths. The emphasis on gloomy atmosphere and visual sensation over the film’s (largely nonsensical) plot makes Miami Vice highly rewatchable. There’s always something new to discover in Miami Vice,in part, because of all the negative space that Mann leaves in the frame — contemplating the visual poetry of a gorgeously stormy sky or a speedboat slicing through an ocean vista takes precedence over caring about whether a dastardly white supremacist gang is planning to pull a drug rip-off. As Vulture‘s Bilge Ebiri wrote last year, “At some point, you realize that what you’re watching is not a procedural. It’s a dream.”

Miami Vice has even influenced other films, most notably Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, which extrapolates Miami Vice‘s “style is substance” aesthetic.“When I watch that film, I don’t even pay attention to what they’re saying or the storyline,” Korine told the New York Times in 2012. “I love the colors. I love the textures.”

Given how ubiquitous remakes, reboots, and reimagined franchises have become, Miami Vice now seems like a refreshing curveball, a reminder that a visionary director empowered by a major studio can make an idiosyncratic work of art in the form of a would-be summer blockbuster. Even those who find Miami Vice indulgent or boring can’t accuse it of pandering to fanboys or exploiting tired nostalgia. It is, unapologetically, one of the most expensive art films ever made.

Back in 2006, even the critics who sort of liked Miami Vice were also baffled by it. “A dazzling (and sometimes daft) Wagnerian spectacle,” declared A.O. Scott in the New York Times. “So cool that it’s almost too cool,” warned Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. Other reviews were less kind: “All this movie has in common with its ancestor are speedboats, shotguns and drug-dealing Colombians,” Scott Bowles of USA Today sniffed.

Oh allow me to retort. The line is “Our gas, or our motherfuckin time.” The mercs mean twin mercury engines and a deep v hull is the shape and type of the boat the smugglers are using.

A SAC is Special Agent in Charge. That is to say the dude who he is callings boss.

As to the plot, it should have been obvious. It’s about these two cops struggling with deep undercover work. Tubbs has a line about “there is undercover and there is ‘which way is up?'” Referring to actually running drugs for a cartel king pin. The entire movie is about how deep can you go before you are more criminal than cop.

The whole subplot with Isabella is to illustrate that part of being a great narc is living the life of a criminal, but how real life emotions like love can make it so difficult. The second to last sequence where he and her wait for the boat to take her to cuba is heart wrenching. Before the raid Tubbs poignantly asks Crockett if he is ready for that time when the veil is lifted, the badges come out and the fantasy is over and whether or not Crockett is ready, and he has to admit that he is not.

It’s a beautiful movie in every regard and one of the best and most technically accurate portrayals of deep undercover policing. I never found the plot difficult to follow at all and never understood that particular criticism.

Matter of fact, pretty much the entire criticism was simply, ‘Well this isn’t like the Miami Vice of the 80’s at all…harumph!” The end of the article is the most egregious, “Crockett and Tubbs allow their CI to kill himself; they go to great lengths to rescue their colleague, Trudy, only to let her get blown up immediately afterward; and (worst of all) Crockett bangs one of the people he’s investigating”

Are you talking about the CI on the side of the road who walked in front of a truck? What else could they have done, they nearly wrecked trying to stop his car, should they have run up to him and slapped him in cuffs? Talking to him first seemed the most natural thing in the world. Just a few seconds after telling him he didn’t need to go home he threw himself in front of the truck; not much could have been done.

Secondly, they worked so hard to free trudie and again, perhaps a few seconds later, unbeknownst to them, the bomb is remote detonated. They didn’t linger around the trailer, she even left in a slow motion sequence.

Finally, the whole subplot of Sonny and Isabella is crucial to showing how difficult, dangerous, alluring and crazy deep cover work can be. Let me sum it up with a great line from Heat. “The risk is worth the stretch.” It was for Sonny. It was for Isabella. It’s worth it for everyone on both sides of the game. That’s why they are playing it to begin with.

You analysis is spot on. I am so glad you posted it. The criticism of the film remind me of the complaints about the tv show being more about style then the substance. However, to me, both the show and the movie were about both the style and the substance. If you don’t get that, then you won’t get them.

Between this writer and @mrscarface everything is there Anyone that REALLY knows and loves Michael Mann’s work will at the very least appreciate the confluence of visual aesthetic and spot-on shorthand that people complain “doesn’t make sense”. oh sorry you didn’t get the cliff notes? THATS’ THE WHOLE POINT. i’m sorry but reading so many comments where people pick apart things they cannot understand because they’ve seen a film once or perhaps twice. how many times does one need to see chinatown to REALLY understand wtf is going on with the plot? yeah very easy to gloss over it and focus on everything else but when it come down to that thing is airtight. EVERYTHING HAPPENS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD. you think that in the kitchen scene polanski said, “oh yeah just i guess throw that copper pot wherever”. PLEASE. everything is totally intentional. that’s the whole point. if you don’t like it then you better have a goddamn good reason why otherwise keep walking. i’m sorry i sound like a maniac but our culture is really, truly #sodeeplyf*cked. i’m at the point with this where i am with politics: you wanna talk fiscal conservatism? foreign policy? fine i’ll indulge you. i’m sure that my snobbish liberal ass really, truly does have something to learn. but social conservatism. just go away. form a colony. leave. you are imposing your ignorance on a world that so desperately needs the opposite. i know, i know it’s juvenile and these people are scared and they dont’ know any better and many are just brainwashed and rather than discard them we should try to help them. but what if they refuse? at what point in a conversation does one conclude that they are beyond. when they have no problem with their iphone and car and TV and porn on demand but give no merit to science? when they are consumed by a myth? you can’t have it both ways. so, in short, if you have taken the time to understand what someone like michael mann has cultivated and you don’t like his films then by all means talk about it but not because you think you have to. only if you need to. there’s a reason why MV is finally regarded as a classic ten years later: because everyone went back and said, “wow yeah this is timeless, we as a society are not, but this guy is”.

i came to this article by searching for “the night of” + “michael mann”. i was so upset because after that crushingly masterful mini series people complained that it was “ambiguous” or that “did you notice that the cat ate 9 lives cat food–maybe that had some kind of meaning?” oh wow–nobody told me. YES it all has meaning. YES one of the joys of life is parsing it out but please can we just trust that the creators of these works KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO AN ALMOST DISTURBING DEGREE? give them the benefit o the doubt. ok sorry i’m done.

MrScarface (above) nails this perfectly but I also want to add that when it hit the original theatrical release, Miami Vice was still a rushed, edited project w/ pacing problems that obviously crippled its presentation, a problem that also felt similar w/ Mann’s subsequent movies A director’s cut w/ some minor fixes and a few altered and/or deleted scenes scenes fixes this movie’s pace & indeed when it finally hit video it is not the ONLY version which can be purchased.

Mann’s work is just as challenging & rewarding here as it was in HEAT, which for all of my love for it damned, wasn’t as acclaimed out of the gate and history would go on to subsequently catch up with.

I would submit to the author that this isn’t so much a dissection of a film genre Mann had already mastered but rather the director falling in love with the concept of criminality whose scale extends across global boarders – the vertically integrated, globalism of illegality. Mann wants to make the scope and reach of the deeds of evil man be illustrated to a greater degree that the ‘latin drug pusher of the week’ his tv version relied upon and I think he advances and is enamored w/ this goal to the degree that it eclipses character development. Though arguably, character development was always going to be reduced to stand alone bullet points in a one off remake of a key cultural touchstone in Mann’s career.

I prefer the theatrical cut. It’s leaner and meaner. I own it both on DVD and blu-ray. I also own the director’s cut on blu-ray, but I mainly bought it for the commentary track on which Mann explains that it really isn’t a director’s cut since he was happy with the theatrical cut, but the studio insisted calling it a director’s cut instead of an extended cut.

Not true. I’ve loved it since the 1st time I saw it in and is one of the rare movies I’ve seen twice in the theater. It certainly isn’t Mann’s worst (I’d say the best along with Heat). The worst would be Blackhat which means it still isn’t shit, just not as good as some of the best films ever.

I was baffled how much shit it took on the internet at the time. Most of that was by people who complained not understanding the plot or they were angry how they didn’t show Crockett and Tubbs personally catching the mole in the FBI. It’s too early to call it a cult favourite (it still made over 160 million dollars worldwide so it might never be called a cult favourite), but it is true that more and more people are saying how much they enjoy the film and some of them used to hate it.

Not for me. I think it’s brilliant. Beautifully shot, the soundtrack is amazing and the blurring between what side of the law and undercover cop treads is a great conflict driver for the plot. The article focuses on Crockett’s relationship with Isabella, but doesn’t touch on Tubbs straight up murdering people when they’re rescuing Trudy. The trailer park scene is one of the best action sequences Mann has filmed (Heat’s bank robbery is still number one).

this is my favorite of all of mann’s film (‘thief’ being a close 2nd). i saw it on opening weekend and loved every second of it. this is the only film i can honestly say i am baffled when it comes to defending. no one i knew gave it a chance when it came out. i remember just being lost in the atmosphere and finding myself in a cop’s undercover world. a bizarro perfect miami. i actually love the cuba visit as well. i might just have to take a day off and lay out on the balcony with a mojito and watch this again.great read. thanks, steven!

Ha, indeed. I’m in the Theatrical cut camp. I love the energized opening. At least you can find it. It’s immensely difficult to find the theatrical version of Last of the Mohicans and it kills me that the Director’s cut is what everyone sees. I love Mann, but I especially love when he’s combined with the right editor.

I honestly enjoyed this movie right from the first time I watched it in theatres (still haven’t seen the director’s cut yet) and always felt that too many of the critics’ complaints against it at the time were too reliant on the movie not having enough in common with the show, a problem I never had since I never watched the show (before my time, sort of). I’ve always questioned why they couldn’t simply judge it for what it was, but as is usually the case with intelligent people being overly harsh on something, it’s probably prior expectations clashing with the finished product that does it.

I do sort of have to ask, why did the author of this article fail to mention “Collateral”? I believe it was the movie Michael Mann made just before Miami Vice and it was not only a huge success (which probably helped the director procure the budget for Vice), but also in my opinion every bit as much a spiritual successor to Heat as Vice is.

Long ago, when I first read about Miami Vice’s under-performance, troubled production, and stars who just couldn’t get along with one another, my initial reaction was quite simply “How upsetting”, because Heat and Collateral were amongst my favourite movies and unlike those two, which both dealt with thieves as their main characters who must necessarily be caught/killed by the requirements of the plot, Miami Vice centred on cops, good guys so to speak, who do live to see another day, and potentially, I felt could have gone on to make more movies in a franchise had the thing been successful. In short, when I finished watching Miami Vice, I still wanted to see more.

Methinks he defends too much. My main criticism of this movie was that it was a TOTAL recycling of an episode of the TV show– one that was done in EVERY way superior to the film version albeit on an infinitely smaller budget. This was not a capitol offense— Mann did the same thing with Heat, test marketing it first on TV as LA Heat, but here this movie feels like studio execs held a gun to the head of every member of the cast and forced them to make the story again. Their heart just isn’t into it or maybe Mann is too worn out, Farrell too doped up, Foxx too narcissistic… Even the action scenes are of a caliber more fitting for straight to video.

I do wonder if the behind the scenes stuff on this movie is what has Michael Mann in the hollywood doghouse. Cause Blackhat was rough and while I enjoyed A LOT of it, it was too loosie-goosey for my tastes… I dunno. But, I will always see Michael Mann movies. Dude has earned eternal goodwill from me based solely on Heat.

Season 1 is straight up an amazing season of television. 2 is great, but has a lot of extreme dips. 3 is probably the last good season, and yeah 5 is pretty rough. Unless you prefer James Brown aliens in your cop shows.

Absolutely spot on. Defines the era, great television and one of the funnest rides on tv ever. Great night of tv on Fridays: Miami Vice, V, and Dallas! Oder pizza, hang with friends, and watch fun tv. My now 33 y.o. daughter used to put the top of her head on the floor and spin in circles when the theme for Vice came on. Good Times and Great Memories!

I’ve been waving the flag for this movie for 10 years. I saw it twice in the same day when it came out, and it’s been a go to ever since.

The reason so much is left unexplained as far as jargon etc is because the point of this movie isn’t to walk you through how things work, step by step, it is about what undercover cops need to be fluent in in order to survive: total immersion. From the very first frame (of the theatrical cut) this is evident by the way you are dropped right into the middle of their world, no explanation given, and you just hold on and let it wash over you for the next 2 hours. It’s brilliant, and yes, very dreamlike.

Also, as a huge fan of the show, I absolutely disagree with the sentiment that it has nothing in common with the show. If you’re as fluent in the first 2 seasons of the show as I am, you’ll notice right away that the plot, and in fact many of the lines of dialogue are lifted directly out of the best episodes of the show, something Mann has done many times in the past (the plot of the season 1 episode Home Invaders has many elements in common with Heat, including a team of robbers in hockey masks, and a climax that involves throwing a patio chair through a plate glass window).

On top of the story and dialogue, however, what makes it true to the show that spawned it is the fact that if you look at the style, the action, the hip music, the high drama and the bittersweet ending, you’ll realize that Miami Vice 2006 is a very faithful modern adaptation and updating of all the best elements of the show – it’s just not done in the way anyone expected.

My only gripe with it is that for a Miami Vice movie, there are shockingly few shots of the city itself for some reason. And also they should have used Crockett’s Theme during the airplane sequence.

Thanks for the great read. I absolutely love this movie and re-watch it anytime I catch it on TV. People who call it one of Mann’s weaker films aren’t really insulting Miami Vice, considering Mann made Heat, Last of the Mohicans, Collateral, Thief and Manhunter. Honestly it’s my third after Heat and Mohicans.

A great point is made about character development. There’s not much here. The thowaway scene for me is in Nicholas’ apartment. Eddie Marsan trying to do a Southern accent was terrible and why not just explain that a CI set them up with Jose Yero? The Cuba scene is absolutely necessary, beautifully shot and the score is incredible.

It’s a shame to know that Mann’s complete vision couldn’t be reached due to all the behind the scene troubles.

I really like that scene (I never took notice of the accent) because it shows 3 things:
1. how well the team plays together (they basically finish each other’s sentences)
2. Crockett looking outside of the window to the sea (longing something, physically there but mentally some place else), then snapping back to the moment instantly
3. Nicholas is an exceptionally good CI based on his 4 million dollar house, so he’s really sure about his skills, and at first he’s really happy that Sonny and Rico call him (he knows he’s about to make more money), but when he finds out it’s about Jose Yero he freaks out. That tells us, that Yero and his crew are way more dangerous than the people Nicholas usually deals with. He has to make the connection so if anything goes wrong, he’s as good as dead

I haven’t seen this movie, and I probably won’t. Don Johnson is Miami Vice, to me. I thought Jamie Foxx could probably pull off Tubbs, but Colin Farrell is no Don Johnson, and that’s the end of the conversation for me.

It’s kind of like how most of us are going to feel when someone inevitably tries to remake Firefly with different actors. I mean, it’s theoretically possible they’ll come up with the perfect replacement actors. But it’ll never happen.

I accept that Mann was reaching for a more serious movie than the TV show ever was (not that the show was a comedy), but I just can’t seem to come along for the ride. Ah, well.

Come on guys, no mention of ‘The Insider’ either ?? I do like Miami Vice, the cinematography, the tone, the music. It just felt a little rushed. Could have been a little more refined, but essentially it beats a million other films hands down for its sincerity. I am not sure if anyone has noticed on the Directors Cut, they CGI’d Colin Farrels eyes to be blue in the last scene with Isabella and lightened his eyebrows, so bizarre. What person took that decision and for what reason ???

I went to this movie on opening night 10 years ago — no one I knew wanted to go and I remember the theatre was all but empty — and I left feeling like I had watched one of the best American films in years.
These characters had been made iconic by a 20 year old television show. Crockett, Tubbs, the drug dealers, the other cops, and their supporting characters were always rather 2-dimensional and trapped by 1980s fashion. In this film they were given depth — battle-hardened exteriors hiding fragility and soul — that clearly was uncomfortable for summer action movie audiences to invest in. The characters and the story moved fast, then slow, then fast again, like they were trapped in a dream world, which, in an important way, they were. That was an essential part of the film, and a crucial aspect of the story. Further, it’s an important point about the human cost of the drug war and war writ large: Nothing is real because it’s all too real. Your life is a dream, but what you do in the dream, and what the other dreamers do in the dream, will kill you.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are fantastic in this film in part because it was clear to me that they were consciously aware of the massive gravity that their characters had in a pop culture-wrought universe, and they seemed at the beginning to be compelling themselves to be the only possible massive replacements for stars that had exploded 20 years before. Of course, neither one could do it, because like all nostalgia none of that gravity existed in the first place. The lingering weight of Miami Vice 1984 was all an illusion by 1986, let alone 2006, and it made Farrell’s and Foxx’s portrayal of two human men as fragile and lost but still struggling to find the gravity to fill fabled, fictional roles all the more important in the context of the film. To find out that even they felt that they failed in their roles makes what they did even better in my judgment.

I had no idea that this film has achieved some kind of cult status. I’ve heard and read very little about it that hasn’t been snide non-thoughts, boring sarcasm, or pseudo-clever dismissals, and to find out that it has some kind new found appreciation is kind of nice. There are so many great, short lines in this movie. (“Time is luck.” “I ain’t playin’.”) Crockett and Tubbs say so much to each other, but they rarely even speak to each other.

There’s one moment I’ve thought about a lot in the last ten years. Tubbs is clearly, thoughtfully, genuinely, but also guardedly expressing concern for his friend. He asks him “What’s going on?” Crockett does that wannabe macho thing that men are supposed to do when their friend shows concern and says “As in?”

“As in there is undercover and then there is ‘Which way is up?'” Tubbs says.

Then Crockett seems hurt and asks “Do you think I’m in so deep I forgot?” Tubbs looks at him straight in the eyes and goes “I will never doubt you.”
No wisecracking or jokes to leviate the mood, since they need to stay sharp and to know what’s what. It’s so great.

“The emphasis on gloomy atmosphere and visual sensation over the film’s (largely nonsensical) plot makes Miami Vice highly rewatchable.” – This sounds like a justification of the Zach Snyder school of movies.

Between this writer and @mrscarface everything is there Anyone that REALLY knows and loves Michael Mann’s work will at the very least appreciate the confluence of visual aesthetic and spot-on shorthand that people complain “doesn’t make sense”. oh sorry you didn’t get the cliff notes? THATS’ THE WHOLE POINT. i’m sorry but reading so many comments where people pick apart things they cannot understand because they’ve seen a film once or perhaps twice just infuriates me. how many times does one need to see “chinatown” to REALLY understand wtf is going on with the plot? yeah it’s so gorgeous and the performances so compelling and the story so HEAVY (even when you don’t know what’s going on, you can feel it) that it’s hard no to gloss over it and focus on everything else but when it come down to the plot: it is airtight. EVERYTHING HAPPENS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD. and of course same for the misé en scene: you think that in the kitchen scene polanski said, “oh yeah just i guess throw that copper pot wherever”. PLEASE. everything is totally intentional. that’s the whole point. if you don’t like it then you better have a goddamn good reason why otherwise keep walking. i’m sorry i sound like a maniac but our culture is really, truly #sodeeplyf*cked. i’m at the same point with film as politics: you wanna talk fiscal conservatism? foreign policy? fine i’ll indulge you. i’m sure that my snobbish liberal ass really, truly does have something to learn. but social conservatism. just go away. form a colony. leave. you are imposing your ignorance on a world that so desperately needs the opposite. i know, i know it’s juvenile and these people are scared and they dont’ know any better and many are just brainwashed and rather than discard them we should try to help them. but what if they refuse? at what point in a conversation does one conclude that a person is beyond the pale? when they have no problem with their iphone and car and TV and porn on demand but give no merit to science? when they deny climate change? insist the earth is 6000 years old and want to tell a woman what to do with her body? all because they are consumed by a myth? that’s fine. but church and state. all of this is about living your goddamn life and offering CONSTRUCTIVE critique. it’s all a language. you don’t have to learn it. but others have and they’ve mastered it. if you don’t want to try then you can have an opinion–but keep it to your goddman self: you lose the right to have a PUBLIC opinion and try to domineer other people through sheer brute force or persistence. what are you scared of? we live in a bountiful world of wonder. there’s something for everyone. but the fact that MV was almost unanimously panned and now people “see the light” is indicative of how sick we are as a society. it’s a simple equation. you can’t have it both ways. so, in short, if you have taken the time to understand what someone like michael mann has cultivated and you don’t like his films then by all means talk about it but not because you think you have to. only if you need to. there’s a reason why MV is finally regarded as a classic ten years later: because everyone went back and said, “wow yeah this is timeless, we as a society are not, but this guy is”.

i came to this article by searching for “the night of” + “michael mann”. i was so upset because after that crushingly masterful mini series people complained that it was “ambiguous” or that “did you notice that the cat ate 9 lives cat food–maybe that had some kind of meaning?” oh wow–nobody told me. YES it all has meaning. YES one of the joys of life is parsing it out but please can we just trust that the creators of these works KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO AN ALMOST DISTURBING DEGREE? give them the benefit o the doubt. ok sorry i’m done.

Mr. Scarface said it perfectly. The only comment I would add about his post is “avgas” is aviation gas and it’s expensive ($5-$8/gallon) making it plausible for someone to complain about making the undercover fake character more real.
This is one of my favorite movies for all the reasons mentioned by him and others. Mann understands how important a soundtrack is and it irks me when other directors don’t get that. Music sets the tone and pulls emotion from the viewer.
Some people complained that is was too dark in its tone but I challenge people to watch the TV show final season’s episodes and you’ll find them being more dark than not. The main difference between the obvious TV vs. movie stuff is that there is no comic relief in the movie and I felt that would have cheapened it. In a weekly TV show on prime time that is a basic requirement, especially in the 80s.
While I appreciate well written criticism I abhor criticism in the form of obvious trolling with one line comments like “this movie is crap”. That opinion means ZERO to me because it has no explanation. If you don’t like something you should know why you don’t like it and be able to explain even just a little, right?
IMO the movie would have been terrible if it wasn’t so “dark”. It’s hard to make undercover work realistic when there is unnecessary comic relief and I appreciate a movie that gets it right more than one that caters to the masses who feel they have to laugh in every movie. A more recent movie that I liked which reminded me of Miami Vice was John Wick. Again the soundtrack was important and comedic relief was kept to a minimum.
Unfortunately the only way I see a sequel with the original cast of stars returning to Miami Vice is if Jamie Foxx’s career takes a nosedive and he needs the money which seems to happen quite often with movie stars (Vin Diesel is a good example returning to FF and XXX).

This is one of the best most realistic works of art movies I have ever seen, directed brilliantly by Michael Mann who brought the Miami scene to life, I could feel the humidity and the thunder storms. Sorry guys but for a participant in the Miami scene in the 70’s it brought back all the sights and sounds. Love the musical score the fast pace the snappy dialog. The coolness of the cast. And my god the scenes of Miami and the Caribbean. I love watching this movie. Color, water, sky, clouds, humidity, fast boats, drug dealing, great music.